Printing the grand manner

Printing the Grand Manner illuminates an extraordinary moment in the intertwined history of painting and printmaking in Europe. The brilliant age of Louis XIV saw the creation of a group of unusually large prints--some measuring an impressive five feet by three feet when assembled--that reproduced works by Charles Le Brun, the king's inventive court painter, designer, and arts administrator. Ambitious in design, masterful in execution, the prints played a fascinating role in both glorifying Louis XIV and shaping critical opinion of Le Brun. Printing the Grand Manner Focuses On eleven monumental engravings based on history paintings by Charles Le Brun, the court painter to Louis XIV and head of the Academie royale de peinture et de sculpture. Between 1666 and 1685, Le Brun called on the most talented printinakers of the era Gerard Audran, Gerard Edelinck, and Alexis I Loir--to reproduce his spectacular histories: five colossal Battles of Alexander canvases, the Fall of the Rebel Angels modello, and two Constantine designs. Louis Marcesano and Christian Michel explore the story and context of the prints, thoroughly investigating how they were produced, how they expressed individual a